Let’s just say it gut-check time. This is a must win for the Beavs to salvage their own morale, let alone the season.

Both teams are pretty evenly matched according to talent and experience. It will be a matter of how the Beavs come out of the gate which determines the final.

UCLA will push the ball into their bigs and hope any misses are picked up by their other bigs. Their frontcourt is their strength, and they will try to use it.

The Beavs can do a decent job of matching up in size, but our boys hold the advantage in the backcourt. If UCLA’s guards can’t get the ball to their bigs, then they create no opportunities for themselves. And UCLA’s guards will fold if the right pressure points are hit.

The tendency has been for some teams to try to counter UCLA’s frontcourt size by sitting in a zone and letting their guards try to make things happen. I agree with this plan in principle…

… but…

While UCLA’s guards aren’t great at creating for themselves, they will look all-world if our boys allow them to get warm. So we’re looking for the Beavs to start getting back to that game they played with the non-con schedule. They need to be relentless in the half-court set on defense like they were against Vandy and Texas, two teams with guards who are deadly regardless of pressure. Our Beavs can play this ball, but they’ve lost that swagger. A good mix of man and zone will disrupt their half court set. Maybe even some 1-3-1 for two or three possessions will work. But Howland has always had an answer for that zone. We just need defensive intensity in order to set up what we love to do in transition and on offense. Our boys need to tirelessly run UCLA’s offense off the court.

Bring it back tonight!

I hesitate to call this game before I even see warm-ups and our team’s attitude. But I’m going to hazard a guess that they will come out with some fire. The shots may not fall at first. But once they do look for them to continue playing Beav hoops instead of yielding to the Bruins.

Beavs 86 – Bruins 74

P.S. – I think Jared should jump for the ball to start the game. He may or may not win the tip. But it would send a message that the Beavs are here to play the game, and our best player is going to start it off by touching it first.

Angry:

Yet another night I'm thankful that I don't write about the Beavs for a living. I mean, what is the story tonight? I guess it's Craig Robinson sliding onto the hot seat. Though, OSU head coaches get fired about as often as government workers.

I really don't know what to write. We all know the strengths and weaknesses of this team by now. New summary for every game: "If they rebound, make free throws, play defense, yada yada, they win. If not, then they lose."

After the debacle at ASU, its hard to come out and blatantly predict a Beaver win…but, they should win this one. They’re at home, which seems to be worth 10-15 pts/game to them, etc., etc. This certainly a winnable game for UCLA though. I’ll say the Beavers by 6.

Beavers win 87-84. Nice win for the Beavers. Defense as a whole was not good tonight, but they did have a nice stretch of defense to help build a comfortable lead and allow them to hold on. The Beavers should beat USC on Saturday. The Beavers are just starting a 5 game stretch where they can definitely win 4 of 5 and can get themselves going. Tonight was a good start, need to build on tonight and be consistent.

OSU came through on the foul line to-nite. I see only 9 -3 pt. shots tonight, too. Must be a season low there! Agreed on the defense though. They did just enough right to-nite to get the win. They SHOULD beat USC, but then they should have beat ASU too. They need to bear down and put back to back games together.

Yeah, what I hate is that this team has to shot lights out to win because they play such soft D inbetween the few steals that they create, but it’s a win against a decent team, so you take it at this point.

You will take win but the defense needs to be better. The D was better when they went with m2m. That was far more effective. The 1-3-1 outside of the first 4 minutes was bad and has been bad last year and this year. Guys just don’t rotate well in it for whatever. That was a big reason UCLA shot as well as they did. Guys were getting uncontested shots almost every time against the 1-3-1 after the first 4 minutes.

For as much as we are all generally discouraged, it would have been nice to see a few more posetive reflections on here than what showed up tonight. We ask if the coaches or players read these forums and hope that our opinions have an effect on people. We should also congratulate when it is deserved……

LOL… well, this site is devoted to a critical view of Beaver athletics, so the raa-raa stuff wont be seen a whole lot. But yeah, we need to say WELL DONE, when it happens.

The team, except for the Idaho and ASU losses, has played some pretty competitive basketball this year and for me that is a good showing. Play hard and be competitive and I think rising in stature will take care of itself.

rsteve, I think that is crap. You are taking the wrong definition of critical (see the third):

1. inclined to find fault or to judge with severity, often too readily.
2. occupied with or skilled in criticism.
3. involving skillful judgment as to truth, merit, etc.; judicial: a critical analysis.

The reason I like this site is that for the most part it is people taking a realistic view and judge it by the way it is vs. the way they want it to be. I love the way that people on here not only bag on the problems but offer possible solutions. Taking off the Orange colored glasses does not mean that people need to put on the Brown colored glasses. If your perspective is that OS is never going to do anything right (and there are some people on here that are at that point) then why still be a fan?

I agree with T-beav that it is important that we do praise the good things as well as discussing the things that need improvement. I think the negativity though probably comes from the 1-5 start to the Pac 12 season, hopefully we will start to win and people will get more positive.

Check out all the commentary on this site. Some of it is your definition 1. In any case, all I said was you wont find a lot of the raa raa stuff, AND YOU WONT. The stuff you do see on the O-live site, for instance. When someone comes on here and starts finding endless excuses for Riley, he gets bashed.

I also like the skilled commentary, criticism, and the attempt at being real about OSU athletics. But all that is not the raa raa stuff I was talking about.

The bad attitude you saw on the last thread, which was devoted to letting it out, was from the sad state of the football program and now the 1-5 bb start.

In any case, my statement fit with ALL THREE of your definitions of criticism, since none of them involve the mindless raa-raa support for the programs.

So saying my statement was crap, is saying the same for your statement.

the team play was not really any different than what has caused the losses. I think in basketball it is important to look at the big picture over wins and losses. This was and still is a middle of the road offensive team and an atrocious defensive team.

Numbers support your defensive claim. And until Coach Rob learns when and where to play that 1-3-1, it will look bad. It always looks bad against UCLA. I have no idea why he played it. It seemed like they got open shots on every possession with four to five passes. But at least they didn’t have Roll and Honeycutt to tear up the backside.

Ugh!

One nice thing that was done was that the Beavs did lock on Lamb for the whole game. The scouting report on them is that he’s the shooter who can kill you if he gets hot. And they shut him down in a big way.

But your claim that we’re a middle of the road offensive team is just silly. Where do you come up with that idea? Do you take a look at the list of the 345 D1 hoops programs and eschew the bottom 335 offenses to come to that conclusion?

So your point about defensive schemes and rebounding would be apropos. We know we can get our shots. And we know the opposition will get some of theirs. What we want to do is let the players on the opposition who don’t normally get those shots take them. And I’m not talking about spacing on rotations so their three point specialist can get good looks. I’m talking about giving guys spots other than what they’re used to and making the low percentage guys suddenly wide open while locking on the scorers.

It’s an art, but it makes the other team’s offense look so terrible when it’s run correctly.

I think there was a difference tonight in the way they closed out the game. I was listening on the radio, so I didn’t see it, but the offense for the last 5 or 6 minutes was still attacking rather than tenative.

I think to be fair, they are a slightly above average offensive team (when they aren’t launching 20+ threes) and a below average defensive team. Last year they were atrocious – they have gotten better from last year.

I am not saying some of this couldn’t be due to luck and the randomness of the shooting but the numbers show that the team is worse on defense this year than last. Also of interest is the fact that last years team actually rebounded the ball slightly better too.

This site is also realistic, you’re not going to win many games letting your opponent shoot 57%. This team has serious defensive limitations that appear to be more mental than physical. That puts a lot of pressure on an offense (that is hit or miss) to execute at a high level for an entire game. Until the defensive issues are cleaned up, this is sub-500 team in league play.

The Beavers remind me of the Doug Moe Denver Nuggets of the 1980’s, very entertaining to watch when the offense is rolling, but they could never stop anyone long enough to be seriously considered as a contender.

My take on the defense. I will give Rob some (but not much) leeway on the defensive game because some of it is personnel. But the vast majority of our defensive woes are related to coaching philosophy. Like it or not Coach Rob is a gambling man and as most of us know when you gamble the house always has the edge. I am a firm believer that basketball is a game of percentages. You use your 35 seconds to get the highest percentage look possible (3 pointers shot by a good shooter and at the basket buckets) and you force the opponent to take the lowest percentage shot possible (a long 2). OSU is giving up a league worse 51.3 FG%, 60% true shooting, and a dismal 46.3% from 3. I’ve often harped on rebounding based on the eyeball test (I think there is room for improvement) but when looking at the advanced stats you see that OSU is actually a middle of the road rebounding team, 7th in DR% at 67.1 and 7th in OR% at 31.7. Now these numbers get interesting. OSU blocks 7% of shots and steals the ball 12.3% of the time good enough for 2nd and 1st respectively. Lots of turnovers means lots more shots than the opponents right? not exactly, OSU is just 6th in forcing turnovers at 19.1% of opponent possessions and our opponents have taken 429 shots compared to our 423 shots, though we have gotten to the line 183 times compared to 158 times for our opponents. None the less you would think that a defense that is predicated on creating more shots for your team at the risk of giving up the higher percentage looks would create a greater FT advantage and at least some FG advantage. Which brings me back to my point that gambling does not pay. Sure you might win here or there but in the long run your better off playing the percentages. Even when in man defense we go for the steal over staying in front of the guy and forcing the long 2. An opponent miss and a defensive rebound is just as good as a steal. Granted steals often lead to fast breaks but when you look at some of the historically best defenses they typically force low percentage shots and don’t necessarily force a ton of TO’s. It is time to stop gambling and turn the odds into our favor.

That was well said. I agree to a point. You still have to let players do what they can do. And more concerning to me is the space cadet look our backside defense has when the ball swings to the far side shooter. But you do bring up good points for an overall scheme and attitude.

Our man looked a whole lot better last night after the first couple possessions of running it. Our help was nowhere to be found when we began running it in the first half. Then toward the end of the half our help was shutting down drives and stepping out on the back side.

And in the second half it was killer for a good stretch.

If Coach Rob looks at the tape and thinks the 1-3-1 works against Howland, then what is he looking at? I think it was run just because our boys are comfortable running it to max effort, not because it actually works against them.

Sadly, it will work against USC, and that will be a sign that it is a great defense always. Right?

I loved the 2-2-1 extended falling back to man. That was a really nice wrinkle that caught UCLA off guard. The first time we ran it, Anderson chucked the ball through the end line. The lanes that are open on a 1-3-1 extended are much different than those on a 2-2-1. I was giggling pretty good on that TO.

I am not opposed to throwing out zone looks and loved when they flashed the 2-2-1 then fell back into man. I think having the ability to play a variety of defenses is a huge advantage too. Or against a team like Washington that we can’t match on the perimeter a 2-3 zone is not a bad way to negate some of that advantage.

Am I the only one who think Joe Burton shoes are ridiculous? I know they match the alternate uniforms but really? couldn’t break in multiply shoes over the offseason. I understand if they team was undefeated and you are superstitious and not wanting to change anything. But you are 2-5 in conference play.

Marques Johnson discussed the blue shoes last night. They are actually turquoise and were introduced by the NCAA last year as a tribute to Native American culture. Johnson mentioned that Burton is the only Native American on a D1 basketball scholarship.

Burton has elected to stay with them as a personal choice. So, while think they are distracting, I can respect his sentiment. JB

I don’t know if you understand the significance. Nike N-7 game is when we have worn that alternate jersey. N-7 is showing support to native americans and specifically those that have stayed on or near their reservation. This is a cause that is very close to Joe’s heart as he spent his youth on a reservation. It is not at all a fashion statement, but a statement that he is passionate about the culture he grew up in. I’m cool with that, even though you are correct that it is not pretty.

One more thing… I give Rob some credit. In his interview last night he made it clear that this team is not good defensively. Of course the proof is in the pudding and it will be interesting to see if he can get them there.

I think we beat USC for the sweep on Saturday. It will be interesting to see if Robinson can get his team to win enough games to make the NIT. That would be respectable consolation to a disappointing conference start and a first for Robinson at OSU. It would be a clear step in the right direction and really nice if we could make it to New York.

Pick the teams in college and the Pros that you want Tinker to take inspiration from for OSU’s branding:http://beaverbyte.com

What are everyone’s thoughts on Stan Hasiak? From what I can see he looks like he’d be a huge grab, I just don’t know his story. Basically he was a four star OG who couldn’t qualify academically at UCLA, went the JC route for a year, and now is thinking about joining the Beavers? Would that make him a true sophomore next season?

Back to Basketball, I see CR has signed 3 recruits in the early signing period. We have 14 already on the team with the only senior being McShank. I believe he is not on scholarship. So that means we already have 13 using the scholarships. Where do we come up with the scholies for this next group?

Sark was “woofing” on Twitter last night, wich indicates a verbal, most of the speculation was that Elderkamp gave his verbal, however Shaq Thompson is also visiiting as well as Shelton. But most of the speculation was that it ELderkamp.